You Can Quilt It

Our machines have been humming lately with our local quilters coming in to rent time and quilt up their quilts. Fall is usually pretty busy in the studio as people get back in to their quilting projects and try to finish them up for the holidays. Because of our Longarm Rental Program, and all the renters who come in, it's like a quilt show every week, so we thought we'd share some of them with you. Enjoy!



Diana having fun using our saddle stool to quilt a Pantograph

Anne's Rainbow Quilt-Love the bright colors!

Ann's Earthtone Quilt-So Soothing!

Mary Ellen's Bold Quilt

Sally's Wonderful Landscape Quilt

Marine's quilt

Dora and I have been fortunate to have been asked to make some very different and meaningful t-shirt quilts over the past few years.  One of our latest quilts was for a Marine. He asked us to make a wall hanging out of a few of his shirts.

We not only made the front out of his shirts but we used a sleeve as the hanging sleeve and also put a couple of his pockets on the back.  This may not have been the largest quilt we ever made but it was one of the most meaningful.

Mint Chocolate Chip Quilt Is A Winner!

Wow! I guess all the hard work was worth it! My Mint Chocolate Chip Quilt won three ribbons at the Silver City Quilt Guild Show this past weekend! 1st Place Ribbon in the Large Bed Category, Judge's Choice, and Best of Show-Guild Choice.
I am gushing for sure, because I really wasn't going for a ribbon at all and look what happened! Just wanted to quilt this quilt for myself and use some designs I had been aching to try.
Although I was under a deadline to be done for the judging, I really enjoyed doing the quilting and love how it looks, now that it's done. The full size picture doesn't really show off all the quilting unfortunately.

So here are some more closeups that show the texture and quilting better. Enjoy!

Probably my favorite blocks are these light squares. Each one is a little different, but love the effect!

This shot shows some of the texture of the quilting. Love the circular swirls!

Each block was quilted with a specific design.

The sashing was quilted using a piano key type motif accented with pebbles.

The dark green border was done using a ruler from Deloa Jones-Rope- A-Dope. Fun to use!

Fun feathers in the dark brown squares, with more pebbling in the centers, plus a closeup of some of the border and sashing quilting.

Great closeup of the border quilting. Love how this came out!

Summer Quilting Project is Done!

Completed Grasshopper Quilt draped over my couch after surviving a long day at the judging for the SCQG quilt show

Finally finished the Grasshopper Quilt!! Progress seemed to be slow at first, and I wasn't sure I'd have the quilt finished for the upcoming show on 9/21, never mind the judging which just took place on 9/14.  But after an exhausting 6 weeks, the quilt is finished and we survived the judging!

So when you ask "What did you do this past summer?" For me, it's basically been this one thing for the last 6 weeks: Quilting the Grasshopper Quilt with a deadline fast approaching. So the lesson I've learned, finally, is not to enter a quilt in to a show unless it is totally completed. I've really got it now!! Not doing that ever again!! I really didn't know what I was getting myself into! Doing such detail quilting REALLY takes a lot of time!

Lots of things have been put on hold, and my very understanding business partner, Mary Ann, has been picking up the slack big-time! So a huge thank you to her, and of course, I will return the favor whenever she needs me! We have a very close and wonderful friendship, and it makes going to our studio such fun every day! My wonderful husband has also been very understanding and supportive and I love him the more for it!

Okay, venting over, here are some pictures-enjoy!

For the large brown center squares, I chose a funky feather motif with pebbles in the spine (kinda reminds me of a caterpillar a little bit, but no worries!). The feather is diagonal in the square, so the orientation of the feathers changes depending on which side of the quilt the block is on. Together, the feathers in these large brown squares form a  secondary diamond in the center of the quilt due to this tilting.

Funky feather design in large brown block on left side of quilt

For the large light green centers, I chose to do a variety of background fills separated by curved lines. Each block on the quilt is a little different, but these were the most fun to do!

 

 You can also see the marking I had to do to get the piano key lines in the sashing spaced correctly. Probably the most tedious quilting on this quilt because every seam had to be ditched first, then marked, then stitched before I got to the fun quilting in the block centers.

 As you can see, all the blocks with the small brown and light green centers were quilted with a swirl design in the dark green area. This looks so cool-better than I expected again!

All the light green centers have pebbles, and the dark brown centers have curved crosshatching. 

 In both cases, the thread highly contrasts with the fabric-it's much lighter than the dark brown, and much darker than the light green--still the same thread though! And, it's basically the same color as the dark green, so it's shows up as tone-on tone quilting in the swirls. Awesome effect!

Will post more pictures of the entire quilt after I get it back to the studio this week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dora

Grasshopper Quilt-Block-To-Block Quilting

So much quilting space, what should I do? Do you have this problem too? With all the input we can get our hands on these days, courtesy of the Internet, plus our personal libraries of quilt books and magazines, it's pretty difficult to decide what's the right or best way to quilt any quilt. Many of us struggle with that decision with just about every quilt and I'm in that boat too. Sometimes there are so many different things to try, I don't know which way to go!
I knew I definitely wanted to do a very detailed quilting job on this quilt for sure. But from there, my biggest decision was whether to quilt an overall flowing design that would basically ignore all the blocks and become a secondary element, or to quilt something self-contained in each block. Of course I spent plenty of time on the internet looking at Pinterest and a number of quilter blogs for any and all inspiration and spent many evenings sketching out different designs to see if they might work. Because this quilt has plain batik fabrics, either a block-to-block or an overall design would work, but in the end, most of my sketches seemed to favor block-to-block using a variety of pebbles, cross hatching, McTavishing, swirls, curls, and on and on, so I went with it and started quilting all the blocks separately.

This quilt has 4 different blocks, two with large center squares and two with small center squares. To simplify the process, and get the quilting going (I still had a deadline looming) I chose different motifs for each of those blocks, and except for some small variations, I stuck with those motifs throughout the quilt.

Then I needed a design for the sashing and the two outer borders as well. All of those needed enough quilting to balance with the tight quilting I was planning for the blocks. After measuring and sketching, I came up with an interesting detailed design that really filled the brown outer border. And decided to use a special ruler on the inner border that would hopefully not be too time-consuming. For the sashing, I decided to do some vertical/horizontal piano keys and pebbling in the corner where 4 blocks would meet.

Here are some early shots of the border quilting in progress:

These show the arch quilting motif I did on the brown border.

A happy accident-I didn't realize the thread I chose had such a high contrast with the brown border fabric, it really gives the border a lacey appearance-love this! 

Will post again shortly-deadlines are here!

Dora

Longarm Quilting Fun-Quilting Block to Block

Grasshopper Quilt Top on our Design Wall at Mad About Quilts Studio

So you've finished your quilt top and are thrilled with the results and it's time to quilt it. Now what? One of the hardest parts in the quilting process for many people is how to get started. With all the input from quilting books and magazines, You Tube how-to videos, Pinterest and other Internet quilting sites and blogs it can be a huge decision. Do you want to do edge-to-edge quilting or quilt it block by block. Do you prefer quilting just enough to hold it all together or are you thinking of all-out, major, detailed "quilting the heck out of the quilt" quilting because this is the quilt you've been waiting to try that kinda stuff out on. Usually there are a number of factors to consider including who's the recipient of the quilt, how much time you have or want to spend on this particular quilt, and what your quilting skill set is.

Grasshopper Quilt Pattern by Mad About Quilts

Well, call me crazy, but this quilt, called the Grasshopper Quilt has become my "getting crazy, detailed quilting project". It's a fairly simple quilt, with just three colors and an interesting grid-like design. I get to keep this quilt in the end, so there's only myself to please, which is a wonderful thing!
Since I also designed and wrote this pattern, it's been rolling around in my head for months as it went from conception to real pattern. Many quilting ideas have been lurking, waiting to be considered, and when it came time to begin quilting, I really had trouble deciding which way to go.

Grasshopper Quilt loaded on our APQS Millie

To make it even more interesting for myself, I have a deadline-- never a good thing if you don't like pressure, might I add--it's got to be ready for an upcoming guild quilt show in mid-September. After weeks of sketching and indecision, I realized that I was really leaning towards very detailed quilting in each block, including the sashing that runs throughout the entire quilt. As you can see, I've got it loaded and have started the quilting! Hope I can get it done for the show! This is truly going to be a labor of love, but so far I'm having tons of fun doing it, and that's really why we quilt, right? I'll post more pictures along the way. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 4th of July!

As we celebrate our country today with friends and family, we would like to take a moment to thank all those who serve our country and keep us safe so that we can enjoy the freedoms that we have. Happy 4th of July!!

Wonderful home for Blue Lagoon Quilt

Blue Lagoon Quilt in it's new home-photo courtesy of Cheryl Collins

Sometimes when you plan out a quilt, picking the fabrics ever so carefully, with a picture in your mind of how it will turn out, you can end up with a bit of a surprise. The fabrics chosen may have an unexpected effect. Such was the case with this quilt, named Blue Lagoon.

I needed to test a new quilt pattern we were finalizing called "Grasshopper" which is on the Modern side and uses only 3 fabrics, with 2 of the 3 being lighter and darker shades of the same color, in this case green, then adding a punch of another contrasting color, the brown.

Section of Blue Lagoon during construction.

I happily chose three from our wonderful studio that's full of fabric thinking the colors would work together beautifully. The aquas, blues, and purples I selected all fit well with each other, so I began to put the quilt top together.

As the quilt was assembled I had some small doubts because the fabrics had busy patterns that didn't seem to be giving me the tone on tone look that the pattern was originally going for. Plainer fabrics with subtle prints would have probably been better I thought-hindsight is usually 20/20!

Blue Lagoon Quilt

The finished quilt was a lovely color scheme with yummy colors reminding me of the Caribbean, but not really showing off the quilt pattern as I had planned. Some of the small squares were less visible, dwarfed by the pattern of the busier fabrics, yet it was still very appealing as a finished quilt top. I quilted it with a fun pantograph, bound it and was very happy with the final result.

Blue Lagoon Quilt in it's new home-photo courtesy of Cheryl Collins.

And so was my good friend Cheryl! She had seen this quilt in various stages during the process of making it, and caressed the fabric lovingly every time. If ever there was someone who would appreciate a quilt, she was the one! So when I saw her last week, I gave her the quilt as a special gift, and she happily accepted it. The next day, I had pictures in my email showing her new home for the Blue Lagoon quilt.

Blue Lagoon Quilt-photo courtesy of
Cheryl Collins

Adding some decorative touches, like curtains, pillows and area rugs, the quilt looks right at home! Couldn't have ended up in a better place! The joy this quilt brought to Cheryl was a wonderful gift to me as well!

Welcome to our New Blog!! We're very excited to get started and plan to post about all kinds of quilts and quilt-related topics.

We work from our studio, which is a re-modeled garage in Mansfield, MA, and is full of creativity and inspiration. 

 

There's always something different everyday with people coming in to rent our longarms, bring us their quilts to quilt, or stop by for some fabric.

With two of us posting, there's sure to be some non-quilt related things thrown in there as well, but hey, life happens and we all have to juggle!

 

We are Mad About Quilts!!!

Mary Ann and Dora